Posted by: Stanley Quan on: April 26, 2010
Study says hospitals reflect more subjective reputations A study appearing in the April 20 Annals of Internal Medicine says the standings of top hospitals in U.S.News & World Report reflect more “subjective reputations” over more objective measures of quality. So what should we think? “I found that if you look at the top-ranked 50 hospitals, [...]
Posted by: Stanley Quan on: March 28, 2010
Iowa Hospital Association opposes plan to publish quality reports “The Iowa Hospital Association is objecting to the idea of having a state agency collect and publish information about the quality of services performed by hospitals and other health-care providers. Consumer advocates have pushed for mandatory disclosure of health-care quality data, including infection rates at hospitals. [...]
Posted by: Stanley Quan on: March 28, 2010
Hospital safety info shielded from public “A nationwide Hearst Newspapers investigation found that state and federal governments collect a treasure trove of safety information, but the public can’t see it.”
Posted by: Stanley Quan on: March 28, 2010
Legal Barriers and Opportunties “Community groups such as those in the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Aligning Forces for Quality initiative have been using private medical claims data to measure and publically report on the performance of doctors. But another vast pool of information about how health care is being delivered in America has been largely [...]
Posted by: Stanley Quan on: October 22, 2009
Validity of quality ratings “Hospital administrators, physicians, and researchers may argue over the validity of quality ratings and rankings, but the fact remains that these reports are readily available to the public. How these measures affect the relationships among clinicians remains an open question. Individuals can see ratings through a variety of sources, including Thomson [...]
Posted by: Stanley Quan on: October 22, 2009
Nursing, pain relief, and whether they would recommend the hospital to others are among the questions For nearly 3,800 U.S. hospitals—the vast majority of the nation’s centers—you can now go to the facility’s individual page at America’s Best Hospitals and click on the “What Patients Say” tab to see how satisfied patients were in 10 [...]
Posted by: Stanley Quan on: October 20, 2009
Opinion by Bruce A. Boissonnault “In health care reform, what you don’t know can hurt you. Quality of care varies widely from provider to provider, and access to objective information about those providers remains highly restricted in the United States. That may explain why U.S. health care quality results are the worst among developed countries, [...]
Posted by: Stanley Quan on: July 15, 2009
Federal and private Web sites offer quality and cost data “For consumers who want to know, there are now ways to compare cost estimates for surgeries. You can learn how often hospitals lose patients as customers, and how often they get them back after less than a month, because of complications and mistakes. This increased [...]
Posted by: Stanley Quan on: July 7, 2009
Dallas Morning News article “Increased transparency is one of the great hopes among health care reformers for tackling the high cost of American medicine. Employers, who pay for most health care through employee insurance, are pressing for more information and are giving it to their workers.”
Posted by: Stanley Quan on: June 3, 2009
In the U.S. health care system, patients have no way of knowing Dr. Harlan M. Krumholz offers commentary in the Washington Post about the dilemma that virtually every patient — and the entire health care system — is facing: How can you measure quality in an area in which your life may be at stake?
